About us

What we cover

Medicare, and only Medicare. Ninety nine articles across nine sections: the basics of how the parts fit together, when to enroll and what it costs to be late, what you pay each year, the programs that lower those costs, how to choose between Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage, what is covered and what is not, drug coverage at the pharmacy counter, your rights when a claim is denied, and the turning points that change your coverage.

How we source what we print

One rule sits above the rest: if we cannot name where a number came from, we do not print the number. We do not estimate, we do not round for readability, and we do not carry a figure forward from last year because it is probably still right. Every article prints its sources at the foot, as links to the government pages we read, so you can open the same page we opened. The full rules are on our standards page.

Why every figure carries a year

Almost every dollar amount in Medicare resets each plan year. A premium, a deductible, an income threshold and a late penalty are all different numbers in a different year, and a figure printed without its year is a figure that quietly becomes wrong. So ours are never printed alone. Each one states the plan year it belongs to, and each article says which year its figures apply to.

Who writes it

Hanh Brown writes this publication. There is no second desk and no team of reporters, and the newsroom page says so plainly. Where an article has been checked against its government source on a particular day, that day is printed in the author box at the foot of the article.

A separate medical and benefits review, by a named reviewer who is not the writer, is a standard this publication has set for itself and has not yet met. Until it does, every article says so on its own page rather than leaving the gap silent. No article here claims to have been reviewed by anybody.

How we are funded

Nothing is sold on this site yet. There is no advertiser, no sponsor, and nothing you have to pay to read. Saying so is simpler than describing a business that does not exist, and this page changes on the day that changes.

When something is sold, these are the rules it follows, and they are set now rather than negotiated later: nothing in our typeface, nothing laid out like a story, and nothing placed where a reader could mistake it for our own writing. Whoever buys space gets no say in what we cover and no advance sight of it.

What this site is not

It is not a government website, and it is not connected with or endorsed by Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or the Social Security Administration. The official site is Medicare.gov and the official telephone line is 1-800-MEDICARE.

It is not advice about your own coverage. Everything here is educational information about how the program works, and it is not a recommendation to buy, keep or drop any plan. We do not sell insurance and we do not enroll anybody in anything. For a decision about your own situation, the free and unbiased counselors at your State Health Insurance Assistance Program are the right place to start.